UWC Religious Council is revived (07/21/96)

UWC Religious Council is revived

by Andrij Wynnyckyj
Toronto Press Bureau

TORONTO - After being in hiatus for over 10 years, the Religious Council of the Ukrainian World Congress was formally resurrected, with Bishop Yuriy Kalishchuk of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada to act as its chairman.

The council's secretariat was chosen at an in-camera session attended by Metropolitan Michael Bzdel of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in Canada, Metropolitan Stephen Sulyk of the Ukrainian Catholic Church in the U.S., Archbishop Antony of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in the U.S.A., Bishop Vsevolod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Constantinople Patriarchate, Bishop Isidore Borecky of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, and Pastor Josaphat Iwaskiw of the Ukrainian Evangelical-Baptist Alliance of Eastern Canada.

The Rev. Vasyl Makarenko of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Canada, the Rev. Roman Dusaniwsky of the Ukrainian Catholic Church of Canada, the Rev. Mike Melnyk of the UOC Constantinople Patriarchate and Pastor Iwaskiw of the Ukrainian Evangelical-Baptist Alliance of Eastern Canada will make up the secretariat headed by Bishop Yuriy.

The announcement was made at the May 31-June 1 meetings of the UWC Secretariat's plenary meetings at its headquarters here.

The assembly also marked with a minute of silence the recent passing of the man who had labored longest and hardest to see that the council was revived: Ukrainian Catholic Metropolitan Maxim Hermaniuk. Bishop Yuriy paid tribute to Metropolitan Hermaniuk as a "man of vision."

The new religious council chairman announced that the body's first act would be to draw up communiqués on its renewed activity, on the controversy surrounding the disassembly of the cupola atop the former Ukrainian Catholic cathedral in Peremyshl (Przemysl in Polish), Poland, and on the need to give former Ukrainian Orthodox Patriarch Volodymyr Romaniuk a decent reburial.

As The Weekly went to print, these communiqués were still being drafted.

The Ukrainian religious hierarchs also met with Ukraine's ambassador to Canada, Volodymyr Furkalo, to discuss matters of concern.

Following these sessions, the newly re-established council held a panel discussion on "fostering faith in the Ukrainian community." The Rev. Makarenko pointed to the need to establish "a new paradigm for Ukrainian community life both in modern society and in the North American context."

A particularly burning issue that evening was the question of language. The Rev. Dusaniwsky pointed out that the Ukrainian language has long been emotionally associated with questions of morality and patriotism. He said it was time that the values of language and the values of morality be separated.

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